Where There Is Smoke
by etgoddess
Summary: And where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: My first attempt in the TVD fandom. Inspired by the promo for 1x22; what could've been on Founders' Day.

As always, much love to my readers/reviewers!

* * *

She doesn't know who she is anymore.

_("Bonnie what are you doing?")_

And no one sees her falling.

_(And she has these dreams where she leaves him to burn and—)_

This isn't her.

_(She's looked into his eyes and watched him burn in the same hellfire that roasts her alive each day she wakes up and Grams is still dead.)_

She turns around.

* * *

"Damon!"

And now everything burns.

_(She barely feels the difference as the flames lick the wood around her and scorch her skin.)_

"Damon!"

He is gasping and choking, clinging to the floor in the basement where _she _left him.

"Come to watch it end, Little Witch?" he spits. He just stares; he won't struggle to stand now.

She steps forward, Grams' words echoing in her head.

_("Don't do this child. Don't make his monster your own.")_

"No," she replies, standing over him, "I've come to end it."

* * *

Before Damon has a chance to react, Bonnie is struggling to lift him. With his arm over her shoulders she stumbles and drags him to the staircase. She pauses to catch her breath and his eyes are on hers; clear and lucid despite the raging mess around them. She chants in a foreign tongue and the flames blocking their path are momentarily tamed.

"What are you doing?" he asks, and for a moment she detects resignation in his voice, acceptance of the end;

_(and she envies him that peace)_

And she knows he is referring to anything but her spell but she is anything but ready to have this conversation with the homicidal vampire.

"I'm not Katherine and I'm not Emily." is her simple reply. And it means nothing and everything.

_(I won't leave you to die no matter how bad you want me to.)_

He is weak but his voice is strong. "That bitch is not getting my town."

She assumes he means it to sound callous and cold but she is not fooled.

His words drip with the fire that can only be instilled by that very special kind of betrayal—and even Damon Salvatore can't quite pull off 'unfeeling' while simultaneously pledging protection.

* * *

Bonnie struggles to her feet and he tries to help her as they climb the stairs.

"Your town?" Bonnie challenges, rolling her eyes. His mouth never stops.

_("I was here before you were even born, Brumhilda."_

"_So you're just telling me you're really, really old.")_

_

* * *

_

He could be, should be

_(is)_

dead and someone is screaming and the town has gone from zero to completely apeshit in the span of one fireworks display.

And it might feel like someone is scalding her from the inside out but she can't pretend her entire being isn't provoked by the constant drum in her body that seems to beat to Damon's rhythm.

_(It's a striking match, a tank of gas combination.) _

Her element is fire; it protects, it defends. It is anger and arousal and pain and ecstasy.

And it is getting more and more difficult to define, isolate, focus on the fury.

Lines are blurring and her mind is screaming hatred and revenge but her body hisses _'use him'_ like it demands water or food.

And she doesn't understand it, but she can't ignore it.

* * *

She remembers the night he tried to kill her; still feels his mouth on her neck, his teeth in her flesh, and she can't figure out when blood and death became foreplay.

* * *

So she warns Stefan, threatens Damon's life, and waits.

_("If Damon spills so much as one drop of innocent blood, I'll take him down.")_

Her skin is crawling and her palms are itching and her fingers flex restlessly.

She wants him to do it, she realizes.

Every molecule in her body needs him to do it.

She thinks it so hard sometimes she swears she is starting to hear him taunt her in her own head.

_("Spill it Damon, just a drop; what could it hurt?"_

"_You'd like that wouldn't you, Little Witch.")_

And she's still having these _dreams_

_(and sometimes they're fighting but they're always fucking and there is always fire)_

and she can't remember anymore if she wants to kill him or just get her hands on him.

_(his neck, down his chest, drag a nail across his inner thigh)_

And she doesn't understand it, but she can't ignore it.

* * *

And she is riled and her body is coiled like a tight spring and she spends afternoons pouring over dusty volumes, searching for reason and praying for relief. She has considered eliminating the source; staking him through the heart and moving on.

But she can't do it.

She saw the twenty-two year old little boy in Damon's eyes.

Regardless, the 169-year-old bastard has been infuriatingly, unfailingly well-behaved.

Not for the first time, she curses being one of the 'good guys'.

She knows Damon would've ended her already and stopped for a snack along the way. _(except now she isn't even sure of that)_

And she thinks, not for the first time, that she's living an episode of 'The Twilight Zone'.

* * *

But she'll get to the bottom of whatever supernatural hiccup she seems to be caught in now; she'll find an explanation, a perpetrator, the deeper meaning she is sure lies behind this smoke screen of blood and sex

_(and Damon)_

_

* * *

_If her Grandmother taught her one thing, it is where there is smoke, there is fire.

_(where there's you, there's desire)_

* * *

A/N: Whew. Idk how I feel about this one, but thanks for reading!

Comments/reviews are welcome!


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Jumping ahead a little, Damon's P.O.V.

As always, much love to my readers/reviewers!

* * *

He sees the evil in her.

_(the cruel streak in her eyes, the blackness in her soul)_

She toes a very thin

_(weak)_

line, always an inch from darkness a mile from light

* * *

He thinks he likes her this way;

_(marred, scuffed)_

A little hypocritical and a lot of traits her friends may not find so noble

_(but Damon knows better than anyone that life isn't red and white; it isn't a choice between fire and brimstone & golden harps but a balancing act, and he has done his fair share of getting lost in both ends)_

* * *

As a

_(relatively)_

outside observer he sees her struggle from all angles

_(watches Stefan use her as a weapon, Elena as her own personal redemption doll, Jeremy as a substitute for everyone that has ever left him)_

And it grows

_(Klaus wants her as a plaything, Elijah as a tool, Katherine as a handmaiden)_

Shane as a chess piece, Silas as his dark queen

_(and if anyone is going to wife up the Little Witch, he won't have a face like that)_

* * *

So yes he sees the evil in her

_(he watches her choke on expression and her own blood and he wonders just how far everyone is willing to take this)_

He wonders when it started mattering

_("I can't show up without Bonnie!")_

He wonders when he started hugging people like some kind of Stefan clone

_(and Sweet Lucifer, even Elena only warrants a raised eyebrow and a few words when they rescue her from, yet another, certain-death-imminent-doom situation)_

* * *

And the witch is acting weird

_(weirder than usual)_

And she's twitchy and her memory has gaps and he keeps catching her looking at him like she wants to devour him

_(half of him finds this terrifying because of late she's unstable as fuck, the other half is very, very turned on)_

And oh, oh that's the weirdest and so not something he has time for

_(and although Elena's been a cunt, and Bonnie is unarguably smoking, flaming hot with that dark temper and that taut body and those pert little—)_

He can just feel the spirits' overwhelming enthusiasm in frying him alive_(-ish)_

if he violated a hair on Judgy's head

_(when Emily said 'protect my line', he doesn't think there was a 'molest my line' clause included as gratuity)_

* * *

He has been utterly, uncharacteristically well-behaved lately,

truly post-Ripper-1-pre-Ripper-2 Stefan-esque of him

_(minus a few guards and Matt; but those were official Scooby Gang sanctioned homicides)_

so he's fairly certain any notice he's been taking of Bonnie Bennett is due to sheer boredom

* * *

He acknowledges he'd have to be a eunuch not to notice,

when she's looking at him like that, her tongue caressing her lips,

he's not sure if she's trying to fight or fuck

_(but he's open to either)_

with her heart beating heavier in her chest and her breath whistling faster,

he'd be bracing for the aneurysm sure to follow if it weren't for the unmistakable scent of her in the air

_(and this vampire senses thing is totally cheating)_

* * *

He is utterly confused and she is on a bipolar bender since their return from the island

_(she's bouncing from hugging him to snarling at him to forgetting he exists)_

And by exists he means he just wants a little credit for his efforts this time

_(even if he doesn't know why he stayed behind and regardless of the fact that he's obligated to be her eternal savior, and her children's and their children's)_

He's shit at keeping promises but he's keeping this one.

* * *

He's tried to write it off to black magic, expression

_(the haze of it around her is smothering, he can smell it)_

but in his more rational, less intoxicated moments

he knows there is no good goddamn reason any spell would have them panting over each other like two bitches in heat

_(Bonnie would hate that, she must be hating this)_

* * *

She doesn't look like she's hating anything.

And he wishes she would just swear vengeance on his immortal soul again or make his brain go pop or call him names because Bonnie Bennett is hot for Damon Salvatore

And Stefan will tell him it's his ego

_(he's not gonna tell Stefan, let him get his own horny witch)_

* * *

But the world is ending, he's sure of it

_(that's the only plausible answer)_

* * *

He's not sure how he should break this to the group.

_(There's always the tried and true casual approach, "Hey guys, apocalypse now, get your shit in order, yeah?")_

But he's thinking

_(imagining, fantasizing)_

about how much more fulfilling

_(satisfying)_

it would be to wait for Judgy to jump him in a crowded room.

Let the Scooby Gang walk in on that

_(and have the satisfaction of telling Elena, Stefan, everyone around the tongue probing his mouth, "I told you so.")_

Except he can't predict when the Little Witch will break and he has a severe deficiency of patience

_(and there's just not enough going on these days what with finals and graduation and the end of the world)_

* * *

So he'll break her, he decides,

_(facilitate, he prefers)_

the situation, amp her up so high he won't have to guess,

take her to crawling-the-walls, crawling-out-of-her-skin, crawling-into-his-pants heights

_(because he has no idea what is going on)_

And he doesn't know if it's the expression or possession

_(or supernatural hormones)_

All he has to go on is smoke and plenty of it

_(flagging his attention, screaming something has changed)_

And if there's one thing he's learned

_(it's where there is smoke, there is fire)_

And he plans to fan the Bennett's smoke screen into a full-blown bonfire

_(because well-behaved is not neutered)_

And he likes her a little bit dark, a little bit twisted, a little bit tainted like him

_(and he'd like not to be second, just once)_

* * *

Christ he's on fire when she looks at him from across the room, the other end of the couch, from right under his chin with those heavy-lidded eyes

_(and he's not trying to be allegorical; his skin tingles, his lips are warm and dry, his fingers ache and he clenches them against the overwhelming need to reach)_

reach for her

_(because she's edgy, she's vibrating; the tension in her shoulders is making his neck tight, his chest full, his thighs heavy)_

And he's losing it because he's hearing her

_(in his head, when he's tempted, to kill, to maim, to pillage)_

he's still a vampire after all

_(in his head, when he's tempted, to run his tongue across her skin, to taste her from pulse point to collarbone)_

blood and death have always been foreplay

He's hearing her and she's in his dreams

_(unconsciousness does not bring oblivion or escape)_

And in his dreams they're well-acquainted

_(they're always fighting but now they're fucking and he can smell the smoke from where the candles must've caught the drapes and there's fire)_

always fire,

between them, around them, within them

and he wakes up smelling smoke and he asks Stefan about it but all he offers is some stupid platitude

_(where there is smoke there is fire)_

and he's not a goddamned psychiatrist, and he doesn't understand it, but he can't ignore it.

* * *

And this is a problem because typically he would go to the Little Witch to explain away the latest wonders of his supernatural existence,

but she's been locked away in the Salvatore library pouring over tomes he didn't know he owned

_(and sometimes he thinks he'd rather just bite her, chomp down and be done with it, cauterize the filthy flow of emotions he seems to be experiencing at the source)_

But he can't do it.

* * *

And he'd like to claim it has something to do with her being Elena's best friend or the ridiculous amount of worry lines already present on Saint Stefan's face

But really it's that damn voice in his head again

_(and this time it's her every time she lets her guard down and she's trusting, she's supportive, she's loyal, she's on his side and her allegiance never wavers, "Are you still willing to do whatever it takes to kill him?")_

not even when her friends are left standing on the wrong side of the line

* * *

and he thinks, not for the first time, that he's living an episode of the goddamned 'Brady Bunch' because he's got teenagers for days at the boardinghouse, masquerading as a juvenile version of the Justice League

_(because, yes, Stan Lee was the tops to party with in the seventies)_

* * *

And he'll figure it out, whatever it is short-circuiting his system when the Caramel Queen is nearby

_(whenever he gets a second to take a breath between all the trying-to-survive-the-day and researching the most recent goes-bump-in-the-night)_

But for now he's going to enjoy it

_(maybe encourage it, so sue him)_

Because the Little Witch has something in her Elena will never quite achieve

_(something even her newfound vamp-dom can't provide)_

Something in her blood that sings a siren song

_(and Damon's knack for making bad decisions as well as his inability to say no is legendary)_

* * *

So he embraces the smoke screen of blood and sex,

fosters it, lets the spark catch and fans the flame,

he'll figure it out tomorrow.

* * *

_(where there's you, there's desire)_

* * *

A/N: Love, love, loving Damon's desperation to revive Bonnie. Can you two just rip each others clothes off already? Once she's corporeal of course. ;p

Comments/reviews are welcome!


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